Veteran Mike Bussey has been poisoned by the Air Force and nobody gives a damn
By Pat Elder
August 27, 2022
James “Mike” Bussey, from Canonsburg, PA, served in the Air Force at Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda, Michigan from 1989 to 1992. He’s certain it made him sick for the rest of his life and he’s not alone. Many stationed at Wurtsmith and millions of veterans across the country have been sickened because of their military service. It is a kind of preventable epidemic.
War-making is dirty business and those most closely involved in it are often sickened from exposure to dangerous chemicals.
Mike is in touch with a lot of the people he served with. Many are sick and they aren’t being taken care of. That’s the reality in the United States of America in 2022. It doesn’t appear on MSNBC and it’s not in the minds of a whole lot of people. Mike is suffering and few give a damn.
The group Mike started, Veterans & Civilians Clean Water Alliance, has been focused on PFAS contamination, as well as contamination from trichloroethylene, (TCE), and other toxins. They conducted informal symptom polling among those who served at Wurtsmith, and found numerous instances of chronic diseases. ‘They have a lot of cancers and autoimmune disorders,’ Bussey said. ‘There are lots of people who have the same issues I do with neuropathy, liver, heart, lung and skin issues.’
Mike Bussey is the voice of reason. ‘People need to be tested for PFAS and a host of other contaminants,’ Bussey said. “And then, they ought to have access to treatment,” he said.
Wurtsmith veterans like Mike want a “presumption” of service connection between their illnesses and exposure to chemicals like PFAS.
What is “Presumptive” service connection?
The VA presumes that specific disabilities diagnosed in certain veterans were caused by their military service. VA does this because of the unique circumstances of their military service. If one of these conditions is diagnosed in a Veteran in one of these groups, VA presumes that the circumstances of his/her service caused the condition, and disability compensation can be awarded.
What conditions are “presumed” to be caused by military service?
Veterans in the groups identified below: Entitlement to disability compensation may be presumed under the circumstances described and for the conditions listed.
Veterans within one year of release from active duty: Veterans diagnosed with chronic diseases (such as arthritis, diabetes, or hypertension) are encouraged to apply for disability compensation.
Veterans with continuous service of 90 days or more: Veterans diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)/Lou Gehrig's disease at any time after discharge or release from qualifying active service is sufficient to establish service connection for the disease, if the veteran had active, continuous service of 90 days or more
If a veteran’s station and disease don’t match up, receiving compensation is not assured. The VA’s arbitrary designation leaves millions of veterans like Mike Bussey without the compensation they’re entitled to.
They must have the presumptive designation.
PFAS is a monster, although the country is still in denial. PFAS contamination isn’t listed up top because it will break the bank. The DOD is doing the best it can to bury the truth about these chemicals they love to use. They say they’ll stop using the PFAS-laden firefighting foams in 2024, although they’ll likely hold on to them on Navy ships. The Pentagon intends to continue using copious amounts of PFAS in degreasing engine parts and chrome plating aircraft parts.
Humanity will figure out PFAS if it is to survive.
“I get a lot of messages from people saying, ‘I’m not doing so good,’” Mike says.
Bussey’s group started in 2016 after Michigan issued a drinking water advisory around Oscoda for PFAS because Wurtsmith had poisoned the groundwater with the chemicals. Bussey remembers crawling through aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) after the fire suppression system malfunctioned in the B-52 hangar at Wurtsmith. He also drank base water and did a lot of local fishing.
AFFF - The overhead fire suppression systems, loaded with PFAS-laced foams, frequently discharge the poisonous foams due to mechanical failure. It is nothing unique to Wurtsmith, although these events are cataclysmic environmental disasters.
Drinking water - Drinking water on base was provided by wells when Mike was stationed at Wurtsmith. We don’t know the levels of the carcinogens in the water that Mike drank because the Air Force didn’t keep track or won’t tell us. We do know that testing in 2018 revealed PFOS and PFOA in groundwater had concentrations of 213,000 ppt. Considering that the base closed in 1993, we may assume that groundwater concentrations may have lessened over the last 30 years.
The EPA’s lifetime health advisory for PFOS in drinking water is .02 ppt. For PFOA it is .004 ppt. It is likely that the water Mike drank was primarily contaminated with PFOS. If that’s the case, the 213,000 ppt in the water in 2018 is 10.65 million times over the threshold. It’s bad at Wurtsmith. It’s another Lejeune, along with hundreds of others.
Fish - The Air Force may have more liability over its poisoning of fish and seafood around the world than for poisoning the drinking water. In the scheme of things, purifying drinking water for human consumption is do-able, although it involves the accumulation of PFAS-saturated filter systems that must be dealt with. We can’t burn it and we can’t bury it.
Cleansing massive rivers and bays of PFAS is a monumental task exceeding any public works project this nation has ever seen. The water, sediment, fish, crabs, and oysters are all poisoned. The scale of the problem of PFAS-saturated aquifers is unfathomable.
Mike Bussey and the VA
Mike was evaluated by the Veterans Affairs’ War Related Illness and Injury Study Center in New Jersey and his blood showed elevated PFAS levels, particularly for the compound PFHxS, a chemical commonly associated with toxic firefighting foam. He’s been able to get medication and some treatment for sleep apnea and other conditions from the VA, but most of his disability benefit claims have been denied, he said. Mike Bussey is not alone.
Bussey asks, “How many of us have to die by Air Force negligence before something is done?”
Veterans like Mike Bussey are a minor irritation to the DOD and the VA. The DOD is fixated on its mission and can’t be bothered. The VA - even with a $300 billion budget - can’t afford to take care of many of its veterans.
A staggering 41% of those who served after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 in Afghanistan, Iraq and other war zones have disability ratings from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Latest in Oscoda
The Air Force is fiddling while Oscoda drowns in poison. The excellent group, Need Our Water, (NOW) is begging for a seat at the table regarding Air Force plans for new “interim remedial actions,” which is Air Force parlance for temporary, partial fixes. A groundwater capture and treatment system was recently completed near Clark’s Marsh. It is a kind of plume reduction system
A second, new groundwater capture and treatment system is being installed to capture PFAS entering Van Etten Lake. A third system is being installed on the base. The Air Force plans additional limited approaches. The scale of subterranean contamination at Wurtsmith and other military installations is absolutely overwhelming and it is folly to think that current technologies can cleanse the earth after sustained contamination for two generations. Some of the pump and treat methods have been compared to inserting a few drinking water straws into a watermelon the size of an aircraft carrier.
When the chemicals are extracted, the Air Force and municipal authorities still don’t know what to do with the toxins.
Dust
Few in Oscoda are discussing the threat posed by airborne PFAS contamination. The Air Force has stayed away from the issue. Earlier this year, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and the Centers for Disease Control teamed up to perform an environmental assessment of PFAS at the Shepherd Field Air National Guard base and surrounding communities in Martinsburg, West Virginia. They reported concentrations up to 16.4 million ppt of PFHxS and 13.9 million ppt of PFOS in the dust in the homes close to the base.
The Au Sable River and Van Etten Lake are saturated with the chemicals. The sediment along the banks is coated with PFAS. When the water levels recede and the shorelines bake in the sun, the winds lift the carcinogenic dust to deposit them in our lungs and our homes. Sweeping and vacuuming ought to be replaced by cleaning floors with damp mops.
Here, we can gain a sense of the DOD’s playbook:
The state of Michigan feels it has the right to enforce its environmental regulations regarding contamination from Wurtsmith, while the Air Force says the state ”lacks the jurisdictional authority” to force compliance because the federal government “has not waived sovereign immunity with regard to the state regulation on which the (violation notice) is premised,” a senior Air Force official wrote.
From the Pentagon’s perspective, the small steps they’re taking to begin cleaning up the PFAS contamination at Wurtsmith are benevolent, charitable acts. They don’t feel they have to do anything. Pentagon leaders think national security considerations give them the right to exert their control over individual states in these matters. In most states, the DOD has always been allowed to skirt environmental policies. It’s like that overseas, too, with antiquated Status of Forces Agreements, (SOFAs) governing relations between the US and subject nations.
“The Air Force is committed to being a good steward of our earth,” says Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr.
More on the fish
Michigan Public Radio reported that Michigan tested over 2,000 fish and the average fish contained 80,000 parts-per-trillion (ppt) of PFOS, a particularly lethal variety of PFAS. Michigan limits PFOS to 16 ppt in drinking water. According to the Michigan fish report, the highest concentration of PFOS in a fish in the state was 10 million ppt in a fish caught near Wurtsmith. Compare that to the EPA’s new threshold for drinking water at .02 ppt. The deadly fish have 500 million times the concentration the EPA says is a danger in the drinking water. The fish are perilous to human life and are known to cause cancer and affect the developing fetus. Women who are pregnant or may become pregnant should be warned not to consume the fish caught throughout most of the state Michigan. No one else should eat it either.
Imagine the exposure to these chemicals experienced by someone like Mike Bussey who was engulfed in the foam, drank the water, and ate the fish!
I’m not sure if Mike ever hunted for deer while he was up at Wurtsmith, but the state moved to ban eating deer meat near the old base.
Veterans like Mike all over the country are starting community groups, mostly through Facebook and social media sites that help veterans become educated, organized, and to click into benefits that may be provided by the Veteran’s Administration. Bussey’s organization started in 2016 after Michigan health officials issued an alarming drinking water advisory around Wurtsmith for PFAS.
Mike asks, “How many of us have to die by Air Force negligence before something is done?”